Arab Israeli MK denied access to Temple Mount

MK Ahmad Tibi, a member of the Arab Israeli Ra’am-Ta’al party, harshly condemned on Thursday a police decision to close off the Temple Mount to visitors amid swirling tensions in the capital following an apparent Wednesday night assassination attempt against a prominent activist for Jewish prayer on the holy site.

Tibi said he and other activists had tried to enter the Al-Aqsa Mosque, which lies within the Temple Mount compound, since the early hours of the day but had been blocked by police at the site’s gates.

“We tried [to reach the compound] through several entrances, and were refused [entry] bluntly,” he wrote in a Facebook post.

Tibi went on to accuse Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu of “slamming the gates” of the compound in “the face of all Muslims,” and stressed that the holy site was “a place of Muslim prayer, period.”

Ra’am-Ta’al is affiliated with the Islamic Movement in Israel, which aims to spread Islamic teachings among Arab Israelis. The party also advocates for Muslim control over Islamic holy sites.

Also Thursday, Likud MK Moshe Feiglin approached the entrance to the Temple Mount but was prevented from entering the compound.

The mostly symbolic visit by Feiglin came about an hour after police killed the suspected shooter of Rabbi Yehudah Glick in a shootout in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Abu Tor.

“I am saying to you that at this moment, members of the Waqf are on the Temple Mount,” Feiglin, a Likud MK and friend of Glick’s, told reporters. “The assailant achieved his goal — keeping Jewish worshipers from the Temple Mount.”

He was joined by other right-wing activists at the site. Feiglin had called for an en masse march on the Temple Mount as a response to the shooting attack on Glick, who remained in the hospital in serious but stable condition Thursday.

“The scene of Muslims praying on the Mount while I, a representative of the sovereign power, a member of the Knesset, am prevented from going up to the Mount, is the victory picture for the shooter and those who sent him,” he wrote on his Facebook page at 8:30 a.m.

Feiglin was referring to an image that surfaced online Thursday morning which showed a small number of Muslim worshipers at the holy site, despite a police ban on entering the compound.

“I am here at this moment at the gate to the Mount, demanding that Prime Minister Netanyahu change the picture,” Feiglin said. “Today, the mount needs to be open only to Jews.”

Under current rules, Jews are not allowed to pray on the Temple Mount, considered their religion’s holiest place. Lawmakers have called for increased Jewish access to the site, while Palestinians officials have called to “defend” the area, which holds the Dome of the Rock shrine and al-Aqsa Mosque.

Glick, an American immigrant to Israel, is head of the Temple Mount Heritage Foundation, and he worked in the past as the executive director of the Temple Institute, an organization that prepares vessels and garments for a future Jewish temple.

In his work with the Temple Mount Heritage Foundation, he has endeavored to raise Jewish consciousness about the centrality of the Temple Mount to Jewish tradition, and to encourage Jews to go up to the Temple Mount “according to halacha [Jewish law].”

The shooting outside a conference center Wednesday night raised already heightened tensions in the capital, which has seen near daily rock throwing incidents in Arab neighborhoods and a large police crackdown on the unrest.

Police barred access to the Temple Mount for Muslim and Jewish worshipers and visitors and were on high alert in the city after the shooting, bracing for violence and revenge attacks.

On Thursday morning, a police anti-terror unit raided a home in Abu Tor, killing a man they said was responsible for Glick’s shooting.

According to the police, counter-terrorism officers arrived at the suspect’s house and attempted to arrest him when they came under fire. They returned fire and confirmed they killed the suspect, unofficially identified as Mu’taz Hijazi.

The shooting came amid weeks of rising tensions between Israelis and Palestinians in Jerusalem. Last week a Palestinian man drove a car into a crowded train platform located along the seam separating East and West Jerusalem, killing two. In the days following, Palestinians have clashed continuously with Israeli police in Arab neighborhoods of the capital. Israel responded to the rise in violence by increasing its police presence, deploying an additional 1,000 officers to the city.

Lazar Berman and Adiv Sterman contributed to this report.